OT-Your getting nuked

azotic · 2010-08-28T12:00:55+00:00

Seems the public has been exposed to X-Rays without thier knowledge or consent.It is well known that the effects of exposure to radiation is cumulativeand the risk for genetic damage increases with eachexposure as does the risk of developing cancer. Apparentley the public has beendeemed expendable in the name of security. Makes one wonder why peoplethat have no known risk factors are developing cancer."American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview.""The same technology, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets." RegardsTom.

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Ed Huntress 16 years ago

If we're talking about the same comma, it wasn't necessary. But no, American style requires that you put periods and commas inside of a right quotation mark. That's NOT true with other punctuation; exclamation points, question marks, colons and semicolons.

It's wacky, but that's the way it goes.

I'm getting lost in this conversation. d8-) IIRC, I first thought there was another error, in which you missed placing a comma before a coordinating conjunction. But then I realized it was a subordinating conjunction, which doesn't require one.

I forget. If you want me to go back and look it up, I'll do so. Having raised this silly piece of pedantry I feel responsible, if you care, to get it right.

"Logical" just refers to British style. That's the term you'll sometimes see in literature related to the subject. "Strict" is a term I'm using to refer to the British style of using single quotes first, and then double quotes inside of them. That's the opposite of American style. You'll see this "strict" style in _The Economist_, for example.

In American style, the only uses of single quotes by themselves are literary -- primarily in poetry. You'll see these uses explained in the Modern Language Association (MLA) stylebook, and, IIRC, in the Chicago stylebook.

Right. I'm just talking about publishing style. Electronic communication demands some modifications.

Semicolons are a (re)invention of a 17th-century typesetter, who wanted a pause longer than a comma but shorter than a colon. It had fallen into disuse until he revived it.

Two independent clauses, or as you say, two sentences, are rarely punctuated in speech with a pause as long as a semicolon. It sounds a bit melodramatic. Thus, there are some well-regarded writers who refuse to use it. Kurt Vonnegut had a lifelong, one-man crusade against them.

You'll see such clauses punctuated with commas from time to time, and the pause feels right to me. If punctuation is intended to replicate the pauses and emphases in speech (most linguists agree that it is), the comma is closer to the way we actually say such sentences.

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Tom Del Rosso 16 years ago

I didn't know there was any conjunction at all.

Now I'm curious about the conjunction.

Here it is again: "The correct word is 'proofreader.'"

Is that right, even though single quotes now replace the double quotes?

I never thought of it as a matter of pause duration. The difference between a sentence or clause and a phrase is more than that. Speech varies in speed in so many ways, but we can't put periods or even semicolons everywhere there's a long pause.

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Ed Huntress 16 years ago

Ok, I checked, and that was Lew Hartwick's comment I was referring to, not yours:

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"Even though" is a subordinating conjunction, rather than a coordinating conjunction. Subordinating conjunctions don't have to be preceded with a comma. Coordinating conjunctions usually do. At first, I forgot that "even though" was subordinating.

That's the rule. As a senior editor, I probably would place a comma anyway, because you otherwise have to read past the word "even" to get to the word "though" in order to recognize that it's a subordinating conjunction. That's the kind of rule-breaking that editors with close to 40 years in harness get away with. d8-) Rules are intended to serve a purpose. Sometimes, particularly because of the way we classify parts of speech, they undermine their own purpose.

You have punctuated it correctly according to American style, assuming you're quoting yourself. Just to avoid misunderstanding, the original should have been:

The correct word is "proofreader."

That's where most punctuation comes from. It's an attempt to duplicate the pauses in ordinary speech. Some punctuation serves other purposes, of course.

Thus, we have rules that attempt to answer most categorical examples. Sometimes they don't.

Taking Lew's example again, and changing the conjunction and some other words for illustration, here's what the rule is intended to deal with:

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"No, some of us just paid a bit of attention when we went to school because we had to."

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"Because" does not cause a problem without the comma. But here's another version of that sentence, using the same part of speech as "because":

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"No, some of us just paid a bit of attention when we went to school, whereas many others did not."

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The rule says that the second comma is not correct. But an editor's ear usually will suggest that it's necessary because of the relationship of the two clauses. An inversion of the first clause, the second one is jarring without the comma before the conjunction.

That's what line editing, or copy editing, or sometimes proofreading, are about. We start with rules, and in some cases, as in medical or legal editing, we absolutely must adhere to them, even if it produces something awkward. In most kinds of writing, the editor's ear may override a rule.

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